Ukwanda clinical school pioneers programme that sends final-year students to live and work in rural health districts

A South African medical school has become the first in Africa to address the continent's chronic shortage of rural doctors by sending students to spend their final year among the vineyard workers and fruit-pickers of the Western Cape.

"We are trying to do something about the fact that 43% of South Africans live in rural areas but only 12% of doctors work there," says Hoffie Conradie, a former rural GP who is director of the University of Stellenbosch's year-old Ukwanda rural clinical school.

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